


Rub This On Your Body

by ceilingfan5



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Eventual Sex, Holidays, Human AU, Humor, Lots of kissing, M/M, Mall AU, Slow Burn, Tattoos, both of them are immediately smitten, chapter five is mature but everything else is gen, if you like me always wanted someone to win a plushy from a crane game for you this fic is for you, kravitz works at an arcade, lots of flirting, taako works at bath and bodyworks, they're in love!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-26 13:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceilingfan5/pseuds/ceilingfan5
Summary: A few bad choices and turns of fate have landed Taako working at the Bath and Bodyworks in the local dead end mall, and it might as well be a dead end for him, too, until he meets the hot (mess) manager of the neighboring arcade, Kravitz and they begin the slow process of falling hard and stupid in love with each other. (With epilogue by ViolentSarcasm!!!!!)





	1. Eyes On the Prize

**Author's Note:**

> I've completed the whole monstrosity of this fic and I'll be uploading each chapter as soon as it's properly beta'd! (thanks lauren @DramaticalHeart!!!!) I'm pretty pleased and, honestly? They're in fucking love with each other. The title is a MBMBAM reference (from Episode 130 "Holy Terror" or the relevant chunk on youtube is also 'Rub This On Your Body'). This is pretty self indulgent and I hope you love it! 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoy it! I eat them for power.

The thing about stupid shit is that people rarely do it on purpose. No one plans to drive straight into a tree, or fail their senior year of college in a blaze of alcohol-fueled glory, or wind up working at a Bath and Body Works in a shitty mall that no one ever visits, scraping enough together for rent and decent hand soap to take home to deal with the fact that you can only afford one-ply toilet paper. It all just sort of happens, like dominos falling one after the other, and by the time you realize what’s happening, you’re already in the middle of it and it would hurt more to bail than it would to ride the flow. And then you’re stuck.

Taako has made more than his fair share of stupid mistakes. Probably enough for him and half the population of the tri-state area, to be square, or at least himself and all of the poor idiots he’d roped into the disaster with him. He’s always had a weird relationship with luck, like that guy on the X-Files that could win the lottery and then get hit by a car. The sheer fact that he was alive to suffer any of his dumb idiot consequences was more luck than he deserved, but the bad luck piled on top of him from two and a half decades of shitty cards dealt his way for no real reason more than made up for that. Really, it was the universe that heaped all that shit on his plate, and it was his own fault, one way or another, that he was still alive to bitch about it. Either way, he had a few choice words for Fate, which he tended to play back over and over every time he had to put on that stupid apron and a fake smile to please his manager until she left the floor for a smoke break or another tryst with the assistant manager of the decrepit Hot Topic across the way. 

Having a retail job was bad enough, but the mall itself was the pictionary definition of Dead End. Half the stores were empty and the other half should have been. Christmas decorations, covered in cobwebs, lingered from previous years, and there was a general smell of piss-poor Italian food and night-guard body odor that came right back no matter how many of the sample wallflowers he tried to spread around the place. It was fucking depressing, in the literal and figurative sense, and every time he had to go past the Burlington Coat Factory and invite the void to stare right back, the reality of his life at this point sank into his bones and rotted there. The job wasn’t the worst part. The fact that it was pretty much all he had to do with himself was.

It all just ran together, day after day, a sale here, no-we-can’t-take-your-stupid-expired-coupon there, stupid training, stupid inventory, stupid new products, chip cards and sweeping and washing lotion off the floor again and cycle after cycle and soon he knew the intimate details of odor retail so well he hated himself on a brand new dimension. At least he always smelled good at a 40% discount, but even that got monotonous. No matter what they came out with, B&B was still no Lush. So on his breaks, when he didn’t have enough time to leave the building but refused to fuck around on his phone around his coworkers, he tried to get unstuck from his rut, explore the empty parts of the mall that would have made a better Tony Hawk level than they did lease material, imagining CSI murder scenes and late-night urban exploration and ranking the dudes who worked in the other shops on a very specific rubric he’d come up with to pass the time. Out of forty points, the highest he’d seen was a solid 22, who had immediately disappeared like a sexy mirage in a desert of culture, until one day.

No one ever plans to fall in love, either.

Not to be dramatic, though that had never stopped Taako before, that day changed everything. Again, reaching full into lawsuit-worthy hyperbole, suddenly working at the goddamn skeleton mall had meaning, and that meaning was who the fuck is that guy in the smelly arcade and how can I sign up to lick those tattoos. 

It helps to pass the time by visualizing your goals. 

The day in question Taako had immediately hid behind the 90’s purple plastic palm tree bench structure in the middle of the too-wide hallway. He didn’t want to be seen through the paint-flecked picture windows, displaying peeling advertisements for the local college’s anime club and a suspiciously targeted flyer for girl scout cookies. The arcade hadn’t been there long, or at least hadn’t been open for business long, or maybe Taako hadn’t noticed because he didn’t give a fuck, but he had never seen this hottie around. He was dressed all in black, with the sleeves of his button-up (fuck!) rolled up to his elbows, a name tag upside down on his breast pocket. His arms were well-padded (fuck!!!!!) and his hair was in gorgeous long braids and his dark skin was beautifully moisturized and most importantly, displayed the most desirable tattoos he had ever seen. There may have been other tattoos, less visible in the dark light of the gross excuse for an “arcade”, but the ones Taako could see through the plastic fronds were striking UV skeleton tattoos, lit up pink in the blacklight dancing around the skeeballs and Pac-Man consoles, accurate down to the phalanges and metacarpals and rippling with his muscles when he flipped the pages in his book and Jesus fucking Christ, were they playing country music in there?

Taako had never been more disoriented in his life. He took an embarrassingly zoomed in snapchat and hightailed it before his boss could come back to check how many triple-wicked over-priced candles he’d sold in the last hour. But as he got back to work, the visual played over and over in his head like the snapchat story he’d sent to the rest of his fuckup crew. Those rippling arms, the perfectly anatomical tattoos, the bare ass fact that they were UV, the horrifying potential for the shitty mall arcade, the strong jaw of that total stranger slash semi-coworker that flashed behind his eyes again and again.

Awwww, fuck, he was practically a 35 out of 40. And Taako was screwed.

Before he had realized the opportunity in his midst, Taako was gone for the day the second his shift was over, leaving a Taako-shaped dust cloud in his wake on his way back to his apartment and wear off the stink and strain of the day. But after that fateful not-quite-encounter, he started taking the long way back to his car. He started taking the path inside the mall, instead of around, right past the dust-collecting tinsel and the flashing lights of his store’s sale displays and the boarded up Italian restaurant and then, then the brilliant strobe of the yard-sale disco lights in The Adventure Zone. The first few times he’d gone by with a plan, his luck had been dried up, and a burly woman with a significant underbite had been occupying the prize counter and keeping a watchful eye on the lack of merchandise. 

Maybe it was a front for something, or a money laundering scheme, comparing the only two employees Taako had seen on a scale of possible ex-convicts who could bench-press a truck to squabbly tech nerds who still had hope for the consoles they’d collected from a few high-price ebay sales, but he didn’t really care. If he really wanted to investigate, he’d probably find dirt on every other store in the strip in a five minute google search, and he did not have that kind of time to spare on his job after he clocked out. 

He only made exceptions for lust. 

By the time Taako saw the hottie again, he’d practically convinced himself that he’d imagined the whole situation, so, without thinking, he charged into the arcade and slammed his hands down on the sticky counter. “Kravitz” (according to his still lopsided nametag) looked up slowly from his dog-eared novel and blinked at Taako like it was the first time he’d done so in an hour.

“Can I help you?”

The practiced retail voice was so stale that Taako almost turned around and walked right out in solidarity, but he held his ground. And stayed there, because no matter how far his tongue probed in his mouth, he couldn’t find something to say. 

“Hello,” he wagered, like some kind of dumbass. 

“Hello?” this Kravitz guy parroted, in what Taako could only assume was a fake accent, unless this guy was severely concussed. “Did you want to purchase some tokens?”

“What? No way.” Taako glanced around the shitty arcade and wrinkled his nose. “Is this it? There’s so much space, I sort of expected...more.”

Kravitz sighed and put down his book, but from the looks of it, it was more of a just-you-wait-until-I-start-ranting sigh than a well-now-I-fucking-have-to-talk-to-you sigh, or at least he hoped so. The book was worn and well-used, and if Taako wasn’t mistaken, a cheesy romance novel. 

“The management has high hopes, but this is all they have that the mall will allow them to bring in, and the customers are interested in...” He glared at one of those deer-hunter cabinets one tends to see at gas stations like a similar machine had flattened his own mother. “Garbage. Between the space, the resources, and the audience, you’re not wrong.” 

Taako laughed, startled into genuine humor.

“Is that so, big guy? You got the same excuse for the music?”

“The jukebox operates on tokens, yes. As miserable as I am, my paycheck isn’t wide enough to cover that particular expense.” 

Here was an opportunity for a good test.

“What would you play if you had the tokens, bones?”

“Well,” Kravitz tapped on the counter in thought, accidentally touched a sticky spot, and grimaced before finishing his consideration. His nails were painted black: tasteful, not cheap and cracking. Immaculate. Fuck. “I have uploaded some vaporwave, but there is some classic rock on there, and by the end of my shifts, sometimes I am looking for…….a little spanish guitar.” 

Taako couldn’t stop his face from splitting in half with a big stupid grin, and it was not because She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy had just begun blasting on the flashing loudspeaker. 

“Is that so. Well, it’s certainly an interesting place you’ve got here.” 

“I suppose.” Kravitz thumbed the softened corners of his cheap novel and struggled to maintain eye contact. “It pays the bills.”

“Shame, though. I was hoping for something a little more impressive.”

“You and me both,” Kravitz muttered, then he eyed Taako’s glittery nametag like a conversational saving grace. “Tay-ko?” 

“Close, but no cigar, Kray-vids,” Taako teased, letting it roll off his back like the thousand other times it had happened this week. It might be time to get his ‘Gregg’ one out of the drawer for a bit of peace. “It’s Tah-ko.”

“Like the food?” His beautiful face was skeptical, cheekbones glinting blue in the disco lights. Taako imagined how delightful it would be to surprise him on the regular. 

“Yes, like the delicious food. It’ll be easy to remember, because I am also a tasty snack. And also I wear it on my dorky-ass apron.”

Kravitz covered a snicker with a cough, hit himself in the nose, snorted at his own misfortune, and hid his nose in his elbow, trying to pass the whole thing off as an embarrassing sneeze. Taako’s heart gave an ugly squeeze and suddenly he felt the desperate need to be anywhere else before he had another feeling and entered cardiac arrest. That such a dweeb could be so hot made his organs ache. He wasn’t sure whether this was worth positive or negative points on his scale. Maybe he needed to throw the whole thing out and rework it. The new one could be pass/fail, and unfortunately this hot rod had passed with flying colors.

“You, um,” Kravitz finally worked out, his awful accent slipping. “Are lucky. I’ve actually managed to remember my own name tag this time.” 

“It’s Kravitz, anyway,” he added, a little awkwardly, when Taako spent too long focused on the bright UV reflection glancing off of those perfectly moisturized features. If he wasn’t mistaken, the guy was wearing makeup, and not the cheap kind, save his eyeliner. His highlighter was...dazzling, as were the rest of his aesthetic additions. The tattoos were so realistic, they looked like a moving X-ray, right out of a cartoon or a rave or a sexy daydream.

“Bingo,” Taako said weakly. “The best prize at the prize counter.” 

“You’ll need a lot of tickets to take me home.”

Kravitz’s instant reaction told Taako that that flirtation was totally on foolish impulse, but his own dick said it fucking worked. 

“Yeah,” he croaked out. “Better get on that on my next break.”

The oh-look-at-the-time-I’ve-got-to-go excuse has never been terribly brilliant, but neither of them protested as the other got back to work. The same stupid, cheesy words replayed over and over again and Taako was torn between wanting to crawl in bed and die and wanting to crawl in Kravitz’s bed and shoot to kill. 

Selling hand soap became a lot harder that afternoon.


	2. Smell Ya Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz gets the overwhelming experience of visiting Taako on the job, and Taako drags him by the hand into the world of smelling nice.

Kravitz did not want to fuck up his second encounter with the gorgeous Bath and Body Works guy that somehow got lost and ended up in the shitty part of the mall where he worked.

He was used to sticky kids and adults with a gross combination of blind nostalgia and nothing better to do, or worse, who criticize the cheap arcade for not being better, having more, or looking like an 80s movie wet dream, or the absolute worst, teens looking to make out in the dark space between the arcade machines. What he was not used to would be actual human beings that actually bathed and actually wanted to hold a conversation with an idiot like him. He could barely go five minutes without embarrassment washing back over him. He’d gotten so nervous that he’d affected a stupid accent. In real life. It really came out of his mouth and then, fuck him, he went with it instead of covering for himself. What was he supposed to do now, keep it up? Was he supposed to keep talking like that until their wedding day, take their vows in his shitty fake cockney, keep it up until the day he died and reveal the poorly kept secret on his deathbed?

It was more than a little presumptuous to even think the word wedding, no matter how badly his anxiety was getting to him. And it really was getting to him. His anxiety hadn't bothered him this much since college. Then again, when was the last time he’d actually wanted to impress someone? He’d given that up a long, long time ago. 

So why was he spending his break pacing up and down the way to the candle store like a teenager with a big, stupid crush? Three guesses why. He dug his hands deeper into his pants pockets. At least The Adventure Zone didn't have the strict dress code that Taako’s establishment did. He had his own code of visual standards to follow, sometimes at odds with the rote measures of dusting the machines and stocking the cranes and tickets and prizes. Maybe he sometimes went a little overboard with the general direction of dark and professional and tipped the line straight into goth Instagram. Maybe he’d patronized the adjacent Hot Topic more than once in his life. Maybe it was sort of unnecessary to wear a full vest and suit trousers with purple silk lined jacket and a silver pocket watch chain and okay maybe he had dressed up a little that morning in preparation, but it felt like armor and made it just a fraction easier to walk in like he hadn't been practicing all morning and looking around for (his) Taako.

The store was disorienting to walk into, almost intentionally, and he was hit by a myriad of smells and lights and the sounds of an untenable throng of people squished into the tiny shop, in a feeding frenzy over some sale that must have been worth it. Most of the people in there were middle aged women and he felt himself stick out in every sense of the phrase, not even blending into the color palette there. He picked something up before he could get asked if he needed any help, a cheesy defence but a traditionally successful one, and looked around as un-frantically as possible to keep his wits about him. Taako ought to stand out too. Every glimpse Kravitz had stolen of him, before and after that fateful day he actually walked into the arcade, Taako stuck out wherever he went like there was a permanent spotlight trained on him. Even in worn out sequined sneakers and barely-store-approved purple skinny jeans, apron still on, he worked every look like he was born to take it to the catwalk.

Kravitz might have been a little smitten. Already.

And overwhelmed. The music was loud and garishly cheerful, the aggressive sleighbells finally matching the mall’s outdated decor. A broken clock is right twice a day, Kravitz thought, with some sense of astral projecting irony. And there were people everywhere, and it smelled good but the dozens of smells overlapped and overcame him and someone said excuse me with all the grace of laying on a car horn and Kravitz backed straight into a Christmas tree, fake snow sticking to his coat, and he barely caught the display before he could be forced to buy a whole rack of cracked twenty dollar candles. 

“Watch out, juggler.” A familiar, too-casual voice interrupted his building panic and Kravitz turned around to see the object of his affections, or, at least, the person he was here to see. “Did the tree bite you?” 

“Um, no, I- sorry, I really-”

Taako took the candles from Kravitz’s arms with practiced ease and reset the tree like it was the fourth time it’d happened today. He dusted Kravitz off roughly, the touch overly warm even through his coat. He tried not to melt right along with the fake snow. 

“What happened to the accent, graceful?”

Aw, fuck.

“It’s my, um. It’s my work accent. For professionalism.” 

For what it was worth, Taako doubled over laughing like it was the best, or maybe the first, joke he’d heard all day. Kravitz wasn’t sure how much of it is at his expense. He also didn’t want to ask. It reminded him of their first encounter, Taako laughing like it was even a surprise to himself.

“They, um. They looking for a lot of professionalism in the putting teddy bears in crane machines industry?” His hair was golden brown and shimmered with remnants of old highlights and slipped out of his ponytail when he straightened up, like cascading gold and fuck, Kravitz, keep with it. For twenty minutes, act like a live human being. 

“It’s very serious. You should look us up on the Dow Jones.” If he were wearing his glasses, he’d push them up the bridge of his nose and give a very serious look to Taako, but as it was, with his vest and pocket watch, he probably stuck out enough without his dorky eyewear.

Taako’s freckled nose wrinkled up in half amusement, half confusion, weighing if it was a joke, and when Kravitz let a nervous smile slip, he was laughing again with his whole body like it couldn’t contain the first bit of joy it’d touched in a century. It was hard not to get a swelled head about it, or anything else for that matter, and Taako’s mirth was infectious. Kravitz’s whole heart felt warmer standing next to him, which was hopefully because he still had his jacket on in the packed store and not because he was head over heels already god he’s dead. Totally finished. It was time to leave the country and start anew somewhere else, maybe with a fake mustache... 

“You’re funny, cat, I like that. Are you here for something smelly, or just a bit of sexy reconnaissance?” Kravitz wanted to ask him to say reconnaissance again, watch his sharp tongue hit the tiny gap between his adorably almost-perfect teeth and melt a bit more, but this was getting really embarrassing and he also had to go to the bathroom over his break so maybe that wasn’t the best choice. 

“I, um. Well, I don’t usually patronize the Bed Bath and Beyond-”

“Me neither, thug, because you’re thinking of the wrong place.” There was a flicker of annoyance behind that, like he’d heard that a terrible number of times before and it was old the first time. “But go on.” He gave a little flickery wave and Kravitz almost expected sparks to fly from his fingertips with that air of mystery and casual control he exuded, even while straightening up perfume sample cards someone had left in disarray. 

“I’m sorry, I just, thought I might as well come see what the fuss is about?” It was a poor excuse, and both of them knew it. He tried to make it better with, “And you’ve already seen my station of employment,” but that just made it more awkward. He came here to see Taako, and clearly came at the wrong time of day. It got busier as they stood there, blocking traffic, but Taako didn’t seem to mind. His eyes were glittering, mischievous, appreciative, and he unscrewed a candle lid and held it out to Kravitz like it was the most natural action in the world. Something about Taako just seemed dangerously comfortable wherever he appeared, like he was calling the shots and the universe was just going along with it. It happened to be awfully alluring. 

“Take a sniffer.” 

Baffled, Kravitz obeyed. Honey, pumpkin, something sweet and warm, all wrapping around him like the holidays ought to feel, and he smiled, despite himself, because it really was comforting. 

“That’s nice, what is it?” 

“Step one of your tour, maestro. I’m gonna give you a guided look around, see what you’re really lookin’ for, know-what-I’m-saying, get you fitted with the right scent for you.”

Kravitz blinked at him. Taako held out two more candle lids, completely unperturbed. 

“If you’ve never been here before, and, let’s face it, you’ve never been anywhere like this, and if you wear cologne it’s probably only on dates and only because your mommy got it for you for Christmas a very, very long time ago and you feel guilty because you haven’t used it up, you probably have no clue what your scent profile is. Honestly, you’re probably into plain vanilla candles and shit.” He laughed, snorted, even, and it turned into a kind of beautiful, ridiculous, charming cackle when Kravitz darkened a little. 

“What’s wrong with vanilla? It’s simple and pleasant!”

“It’s boring, dude! It’s totally background! And I’m pretty sure it’s not you. You need to stand out! Fuck these candles, you need some body spray. Come on. Nope, Nooooope. Come with me.” He manhandled Kravitz again, dragged him across the store, which, like an upturned anthill, continued to writhe and seethe like they’d never interrupted the chaos. Surprised, Kravitz didn’t even think to resist, like he already knew Taako and trusted him, for some reason, to do right by his scent profile, whatever that was. And maybe he did. Not trust Taako, not entirely. He was mischievous, impish, probably had a longstanding hobby of playing with matches, but there seemed to be nothing malicious about him. At the moment. And those warm hands pushing him around the store left little to be desired. 

“So here’s our manly man section, which is bullshit, bee-tee-double-you,” he ignored the look Kravitz sent him for actually saying that out loud, “But I’m totally into getting you into something deeper, capiche? You need to smell sexy if you want to be sexy, feel sexy, exude, sexy, share a little sexy with your new friend you just met, just a suggestion.” He pulled a handful of white paper strips from nowhere like a party magician and sprayed one of about ten scents onto the paper. Kravitz leaned in to sniff but Taako put a firm finger on the end of his nose. Kravitz blinked at him again, not terribly used to casual touch, and melted a little more at those deep, dangerous, honey sweet eyes.

“You gotta wait. If you go right after spraying it, it just smells like the alcohol that carries it, which, by the way, is one of the fatal flaws of this establishment. You have to let the stink sink in.”

“I didn’t know smells were so complicated.” Kravitz’s voice sounded silly with Taako squishing his nose, but some part of him was totally cool with him taking charge, and he flushed again when he realized this. 

“Big time, dumbo! Like,” He released Kravitz and flashed the first one past him, then sprayed another, like this was going to be an arduous process. “How I had you smell the candle lids instead of stuffing your sniffer right into the wax. You know why?”

“So they don’t shatter into a million pieces if you drop them?”

“Wrongo, or at least, not the big reason. No, no, like, if you smell the actual candle wax, it doesn’t give a true sense of the candle when it’s burning.” He was babbling, Kravitz realized, as white strip after white strip waved past his nose and the different smells wound together and formed a thick headache at the base of his skull. Not only was he babbling, it didn’t even seem to be retail shpiel, but real, on-the-job knowledge he was using to fill the air between them while they stood quite so close. He knew his shit, which was, for some reason, ridiculously attractive. Kravitz may have just been looking for excuses now, though, because of all of the samples, what he really wanted to smell was Taako’s hair. 

Fuck, he was in deep. 

“I said, how about that one?”

Kravitz blinked at him, realized he was rubbing his temples, and bit his lip. All of this dazed blinking was starting to become a habit and he hoped he didn’t look like a big stupid fish.

“I- I’ll admit, Taako, it was sort of hard for me to tell the difference. They’re so strong, and...” He trailed off, feeling pathetic and hoping his head would stop hurting when he wasn’t looking the sun right in the face. When Taako frowned Kravitz wanted to take it all back, wanted to love each and every scent for him, but he couldn’t help being sensitive. “Some of them were nice, I just-”

“No, I get it, you’re a simple guy. Maybe you just need something simpler. Or you want me to make the decision for you.” 

Kravitz wasn’t sure if that was much of a compliment, but he let Taako drag him across the store again to a display of festively dolled up lotions. He picked one up on impulse and felt his lunch crawl when he noticed the price. So maybe he didn’t use lotion very often (sue him) and when he did it was unscented Gold Bond from Walmart, but $14 was a lot to drop on something he probably wouldn’t use. 

“Try this.” Taako squeezed a thick dollop out and Kravitz reached out to take it, but instead of putting it straight on Kravitz’s hands, he put it on his own, then took Kravitz’s and began to massage the lotion straight into them. “You dry motherfucker. Your hands are so cold! You can moisturize your face and you don’t put lotion on your fuckin’ hands?” 

Kravitz could only mutter an apology. 

“Nah, shut up. If you used lotion more often, your clammy hands wouldn’t get all cracked up and gross, you got me?” 

Taako was the first to have held them in a very, very long time. Kravitz ought to feel offended--he didn’t ask for this, for the tour, for the lotion, for the massage, for Taako’s personal attention and nitpicking. But it felt nice on his hands, warm when Taako let go with a satisfied look on his face. They tingled a little, and he guessed not from the shea extract. Taako’s eyes stayed glued to his, honeyed and warm, just like the lotion, and something heated up in the empty chasm of Kravitz’s chest cavity and lit it up like a carnival. He couldn’t drop the eye contact, couldn’t look away if he wanted to, and he sure as hell didn’t want to, because something magical flickered between them, bullet-time slow motion in the chaos of the shop, blooming into the world anew like petunias in the cracks of concrete. 

“How’s that?” 

Kravitz’s voice was an octave lower than he could put a handle on when he replied with a weak “Good.” And before he knew it, he’d bought the whole tube and let himself get ushered out the door. Limited edition, Taako said. Leftover from fall, last in the shop. Special. His favorite. Can we have your number for purely retail coupon related purposes? For hours after, he lifted his hands to his nose and appreciated the warm, not-too-strong smell of Pure Honey Salted Caramel Apricot, a mouthful of words for a very particular feeling. Every time he caught the scent, he thought of the warmth of Taako’s crafty hands and his warmer smile, his nose crinkled to draw constellations in his freckles. He was glad he didn’t work in food service, because it was hours before he washed them, and if he was completely honest with himself, he put more on right after.


	3. Call Me Maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes!!!! Communicate!!!! Go for the relationship!! You love each other! 
> 
> Taako and Kravitz finally, finally talk to each other. The other two horny boys appear in this one.  
> (edit: i fucked up and mixed up 3 and 4 briefly whoops)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of support I'm getting on this is ridiculous!! I want to print out all of your comments and eat them, honestly they really help me get up in the morning. We're going full self-indulgent for 2018 and I, made a playlist (it's gonna be a plot point shut up). Feel free to suggest some more taakitz songs cause I am, love them ( https://goo.gl/XKiyzA )
> 
> and big thanks to @DramaticalHeart, beta extraordinaire!!!!!!!!!!!!

“What, so you haven’t gone on a date yet?”

This wasn’t the first time Taako’d regretted lunchtime poker with his mall allies, but it may have been the most embarrassing, including when the Red Lobster waiter he’d fucked invited himself along like they were suddenly a capital-t Thing. Magnus and Merle, two totally incompatible assholes from wholly different realities, had wormed their way into his life when he first had to get the job and move unceremoniously out of University housing, and the shitty apartment he rented with them was only a short ways from the shitty mall, and okay sometimes they carpooled, and maybe, technically, if you were being very definition-focused, you could call them “friends”. Associates was more accurate. Teammates was pushing it. 

Though he was drawn to them no matter what bullshit came out of his mouth, because even non-malicious associates were hard to come by. This particular line of questioning might have reawakened his own malice, however. 

“Um, fuck you, number one, number two, go fish, and number three, he hasn’t said diddly bitch yet, so I’m holding my horses on that one unless I see some digits.”

“You could just text the number he gave the store,” Merle pointed out, taking that round in stride. He pushed another stack of nickels into the middle, along with two pieces of chocolate, a bracelet, some buttons and a glittery cell phone charm from the neighboring Claire’s. 

“And break store code?” Taako feigned horror for five seconds before laughing and ponying up too. “Duh, I already did. I’m waiting for him to ask for me, though.”

“I don’t see why.” Magnus scratched his head, and then picked dog hair off of his jacket, and then looked at his cards again. “I also still don’t see how your rules make any sense, either.” 

“I don’t want to seem desperate? Obviously?” 

“He’s ‘obviously’ into you.” Merle leaned over to “help” Magnus, “accidentally” knocking a few pieces of the pot back into his pile. Taako would talk shit if he hadn’t already done the same thing and wasn’t so tied up in his personal worries. Merle wasn’t wrong, because that was a fact of the universe, and anyone would be lucky to stand close enough to him to smell his breath, natch, but opening himself up for that sort of thing never seemed to end well, and he already knew way too many people at the mall, including in the biblical sense. It couldn’t be that hard to avoid him, but getting stuck at work and listening to bullshit from one side of the spectrum (why did you break up with me I’ll love you to the grave look I got your name tattooed on me) to the other (haha you thought it was anything more than a one night stand, you desperate fuck? How dare you assume blah blah blah) was so far away from the ideal it made him a little nauseous. 

“I’m getting a fucking pretzel,” he said, laying down his cards, deflecting their bullshit and the pressure like a laser shield and standing as haughtily as possible. His chair skeetered back across the nasty food court tile and made a horrible noise that turned exactly zero heads. His friends were unphased. Used to it. 

“Oh, sit your jumpy ass down.” Merle snatched his phone before Taako could smack his grabby hands away, and Merle began to ruin his life as loudly as he possibly could. 

“Dearest skeleton man, I would be so honored if you would accompany me to a romantic food truck,” he narrated, practically climbing onto Magnus’s lap to stay out of reach of Taako’s vicious swipes at him. “We can share a sensual burrito, get drunk in public, and kiss all evening by the fountain in the park...”

“Wait, wait, he should introduce himself first.” Magnus grabbed the phone away from him and erased what Merle had typed. “Hi, it’s Taako! From the Soap store!! And I think we should date! Because I really like you!!!!”

“That’s good, that’s good, add more exclamation points!” Merle crowed as Taako tipped his chair over in vain trying to get his phone back.

“You idiots couldn’t even impersonate me to steal my credit card! That’s not what I SOUND LIKE!” 

“Yeah, well, what would you say?” Merle took the opportunity to clear his “winnings” off the table before his bad poker skills could be called out again. “Since you’re so eager to talk to him.”  


“I don’t know! Hey, it’s Taako!”

“Sent!” Magnus cheered, right before Taako finally recovered the phone. He peeked nervously at the message that had actually been sent, which, thank fucking god, had actually been “Hey, it’s Taako!” and not some purple prose Merle had come up with. And immediately, the read check mark appeared next to it. Taako wished to be instantaneously swallowed into the Earth’s crust. Maybe he could have a nice cave there. It couldn’t be too much worse than this. 

He glared at the two culprits. Magnus whistled comically, like he’d had nothing to do with it. 

“You’ve blown it! What if he’s weirded out! I shouldn’t know his number, okay? That’s like, stalking! And what if he’s not that into me?”

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be. You’re attractive, he’s attractive-”

“Ew! Merle! You’re like my dad!” 

“I mean, he’s not wrong, Taako, you are both pretty hot.” 

“Obviously, but still fuck you, is the point!” Taako clutched at the food court chair like it would somehow support him through watching the symbol of Kravitz starting to type, stop, starting again, and stop, with no reply as the minutes dragged on. 

“I still think you should ask about the burrito truck. I know a pretty sexy one near Magistrate Court.”

“I’m going to go get a fucking pretzel now, and if I don’t come back, it’s because I had them bake me and cover me in cheese and bury me in the parking lot, and neither of you are invited to my funeral.”

“Bring me back some napkins!”

_Hey, it’s Taako. Hey! It’s Taako!!!!! I stole your phone number from our private database because I’m creepy into you and your hotass tattoos. Not your ass tattoos. Unless you have ass tattoos, in which case I’m very interested. I’m texting you because I have no idea how to approach casual social interaction. Bye forever. It was Taako._ He wanted to die, and his jumpy imagination was going to do the killing for him. 

He bought the huge thing of cinna-bites. And three portion cups of frosting. Also a hot cheese, to drown his sorrows in. And then his phone vibrated. 

[Hey, Taako. This is Kravitz. I guess you know that. I’m glad you texted me.]

Holy shit. He leaned against the lemonade advertisement, legs suddenly transmuted into jello, and reread it. This guy was even more of a dork than Taako was. 

[yeah]  
[im just cool like that i guess]

It was, at this point, very important to establish his cool, casual, approachable persona, instead of the golden retriever Magnus had made him out to be.

[anyway]  
[i really dig your tattoos]  
[where did you get them done]

He patted himself on the back for that one. Now they had something to talk about, something to focus on besides the way his heart hammered in his chest like this was some kind of embarrassing high school crush and not...well, a...whatever it really was. 

[Ah, at the Raven’s Roost. It’s up in the city, actually, but they did an excellent job. I’ve got a few from them.]

[counting the skelies as one each or like what]

[As a sleeve each, I suppose? They’re not full sleeves, but they are pretty large. I have others. They aren’t all UV, if you were wondering. The sleeves are actually rather new; I want to add more to them. I’m just waiting to be able to afford it.]

A semicolon?? A fucking semicolon?? What the fuck kind of power move was that? This guy was all punctuation and capitals and coherent thoughts like some kind of literature professor and if that shit wasn’t intimidating, his middle name was Martha. 

But he couldn’t help himself from replying, either. He grabbed the pretzels and assorted horrible sauces and returned to the table, relieved to have treats as bait to keep his phone and dignity safe. And even as the pretzel bites disappeared and the poker game was swept away and they all returned to their respective indentured servitudes, Taako kept texting Kravitz. As intimidating as it was to talk to a guy who actually used periods like he meant it, he was surprisingly easy to talk to. He found out what other tattoos Krav had (one on his back of a raven taking off, unfinished, a section of his ribs done up like lilies were growing out of an antique scientific rib cage drawing because shit, he was really going for that skeleton theme, and the UV skeleton arms, of course, which apparently went up past his elbows) and where he’d gotten them done (all the same place, minus the bird, which had been his first) and how much they’d cost (a lot, but totally worth it and all he could think about when he got his paychecks). And Kravitz asked Taako if he had any, (one) and Taako, for some reason, trusted him enough to be kind of honest, and send him a picture of the phoenix he had tucked away on the side of his chest and give him the long and short behind it. 

[it was for my sister actually]  
[if you knew her itd be pretty obvs how it fits her]

[I’m sorry...is it a memorial tattoo? It’s beautiful.]

[fuck uh]  
[yeah]  
[it was supposed to be anyway?]  
[we thought she was dead cause shed been missing a long time, like]  
[even the police gave up]

Kravitz’s familiar typing symbol started up again, stopped, and no text appeared. Taako scrambled to move past it before he could play psychoanalyst or something.

[we found her though a few years later so]  
[whoops]

He put a lid on that emotional wormhole as fast as he could, hating his idiot ass for starting the stupid conversation. He could have just lied or said, look at this sick firebird, and be done with it, but no, he had to go and spill his guts and stare those message typing dots down while he waited for Kravitz to drop him like a hot potato. It seemed like a million years before Kravitz settled on something to send. 

[That sounds awful, Taako, I’m really sorry about that. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.]

At that point Taako had to hide his phone and plaster his retail smile back on and not have a breakdown at work for his cute goth store neighbor because he had a fucking reputation to maintain and bills to pay, thank you very much, and he couldn’t get caught with his phone out again when they were so busy. It was hard enough not to chuck it across the room and run as fast as he could in the other direction.

He also refused to cry in public. It was hard to go back to the texts when he got off work, even, and he almost considered completely dropping the conversation himself, along with the guy he’d had it with. That shit was too much emotional labor, and he had enough of that acting like an animatronic lotion dealer all day. Quick fucks were way easier and didn’t ask stupid questions. 

They didn’t keep hounding him after he dropped them, either. When he finally opened his messages, half a dozen were waiting, all from the same anxious author. Apologies for bringing up a sensitive subject. Hopes that nothing would happen again. Continued assurance that even though it must have been terrible, at least he had her back. Taako took a deep breath and squashed that whole line with a casual “it’s whatever” and tactlessly changed the subject. Kravitz was hesitant, always the slow typer and deleter and retyper, but he went along with it, and Taako appreciated that more than the apologies for something he couldn’t possibly understand. It was easier to probe him than give up any information of his own, and Kravitz was a bit of a babbler. It was kind of cute to poke him into talking and just let him go, and Taako just had to listen. Or read. Whatever. 

He had wanted to be a conductor. The music kind, not the train kind, although he admitted that trains were also kind of cool. He could play a shit load of instruments plus percussion, because according to him a lot of percussion instruments didn’t really count as their own instruments once you had one down, and neither did different kinds of saxophone (of which there were apparently many?). He’d started with the cello. He liked the clarinet, was okay at the flute, preferred the trombone to both the tuba and the trumpet, and the bass to the violin and viola. He could play all manner of guitar, from electric to Wonderwall, and he was picking up Spanish. Brass, he said, was his weakness. His lips just didn’t work well for it. 

Taako had to hold back his response to that one, but Kravitz seemed to find the toned down version funny, and Taako didn’t mind getting a laugh out of Kravitz one bit. In return, Kravitz pushed back a little, not too hard, but enough to test the waters. Taako threw him a few bones, but not enough details to connect them. He liked to cook, but he hadn’t gone to school for it. He didn’t finish his bachelor’s. He’d worked at the mall for a while now. And then it was easy to foist the bomb back in Kravitz’s lap. He hadn’t worked at the Adventure Zone long, but his mom owned the place, in addition to a lot of property in the area, and it was the only place he could get hired without making his car smell like shitty pizza. Not a lot of people were hiring conductors, so he was just doing what he could to survive. Fuck if that wasn’t the truth.

And before he knew it, it was way past time for Taako to go to bed, and they were still texting and snapchatting pictures and, hell, maybe, just maybe, he liked this guy a little bit. Or a lot. Just maybe. 

They kept texting, kept talking about inane shit (“Taako, are we playing 20 questions?” “shit man if u wanna be reductive. whats ur cup size”) and random, easy, not too deep things like the kind of music they liked (Kravitz had whole playlists of songs he dreamt of putting on the jukebox and sometimes rigged the system to default to when no one put money in) and who had the best ice cream in the area (Taako had no shame about eating ice cream in the winter and refused to listen to reason about it) and whatever else came to mind. It stretched on like that, even though they worked in the same building, because it was way easier to chat than talk to each other face to face. Taako was the first one to broach the topic, and only because Merle bet Magnus twenty bucks he couldn’t do it, 

[you wanna go out to dinner sometime]  
[?]

No hesitation this time.

[Yes]  
[I mean, I’d really like that, Taako.]


	4. Winner Winner Pancake Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YEAH BABY IT'S MY FAVORITE TROPE: WINNING PRIZES FOR YOUR DATE  
> first date!! first date!!!!! first date!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you all!! i love them!!!!

Kravitz was halfway through closing when Taako showed up, and if Kravitz had been expecting anything with regards to his outfit, it sure wasn’t… that. 

Free of the regulations and apron of retail for the day, he had picked only the best to wear to their almost date. It was hard to know where to set his eyes: the electric pink suspender skirt with foil printed stars? The halter crop top with a sequined unicorn across his chest, the alluring softness of his exposed middle, the temptation of looking for his tattoo in person, the knee-high leather boots with killer heels, the truly remarkable sweater he had draped over his arm with his big ridiculous bag? Maybe the totally unnecessary enormous black sun hat (with golden star spangled hat band), the brim jauntily tilted over his manicured brows and razor-sharp purple eyeliner, or the brilliant shimmer of his hair, curled and glittered and misleadingly effortlessly cascading down his shoulders? He couldn’t keep his jaw from falling like a broken nutcracker, and judging by Taako’s smirk, his reaction had been fully calculated. 

“You-” Kravitz swallowed, wishing he hadn’t spent all day in what he was currently wearing. It was obvious Taako had showered just prior, and he smelled fantastic, almost familiar. Probably something from his store, not that Kravitz could put his finger on it. He just smelled… alluring. Inviting. Warm. “Wow.”

“I’ll take ‘wow’.” He looked around the blessedly empty arcade with an aloof curiosity Kravitz was starting to recognize. “You close to done, or…?” 

“Um, no, sorry,” Kravitz scrambled, finally remembering his protocol after the shortage. “I’m just closing up. I have to finish stocking and count out the cash.”

“Shit, I always wanted to see how you stock those motherfuckers.” He dumped his accessories on the least sticky part of the prize counter Kravitz spent most of his time at and gave a fully intentional spin, showing off the fullness of his skirt in addition to his thighs. It was a little cold for that kind of getup, and his fishnet tights didn’t seem to do much for the climate, but Kravitz could probably forgive him for it. “Or is that trade secret?”

Kravitz laughed, finding his footing and clinging to it. He could handle flirting. Probably. It wasn’t as if he’d never flirted before. 

“Hardly. But I’m going to make you help me. No free shows for non-employees, I’m afraid.” 

Taako chewed on a loose fake nail and watched Kravitz heft a box of stuffed animals from the back shelf. 

“Only if you make me, Romeo.”

Kravitz’s instant reaction was to throw a stuffed banana at him. Taako laughed and launched it back with pinpoint accuracy, the toy beaning him right on the head and boomeranging under an air hockey table. 

“You ass!”

“Don’t challenge me, Taako. I’m very competitive.”

Something flickered in Taako’s eyes, and it wasn’t the disco lights. 

Kravitz retrieved the keys and unlocked the claw machines before he could get too far off track. If they wanted to eat anywhere with edible food, they needed to get out of there soon, and as tempting as it was to fuck around with Taako at work, he’d been looking forward to a real date with him since Taako had first wandered into the arcade. This was his chance to shine, and he couldn’t fuck that up before they even got to dinner. 

“It’s really not complicated,” Kravitz was incapable of stopping himself from narrating the process, and for some reason Taako actually seemed into it. “This one has doors, which helps. Some of them are a little more difficult to get the toys in. I hate stocking the fancy ones, with the more expensive prizes. They have more security.”

“What, so you can’t just shake the machine?” Taako picked up one of the other plush from the box as Kravitz started to chuck them in.

“They’re actually rigged to set off alarms when people do that, especially the coin pushers. We don’t tolerate people cheating, because then we lose money.” 

Taako snorted. 

“Cause you’re making so much money as it is. What’s the deal with these prizes, man? They look dead inside. Dollar store rejects.” He wasn’t wrong, but Kravitz couldn’t help taking it a little personally and letting his feathers get ruffled. 

“Well, they are what we’ve got. And when we make a bit of a profit, we can afford better prizes.” He turned the box over and shook it, tossed in the last few toys and shut the door a little harder than necessary. 

“No, no, see, that’s bullshit.” Taako reproduced the toy he’d taken once Kravitz had locked the door soundly, waving its ugly little arms at him in supplication. “Prizes are your investment here! No dumbass is gonna come in and drop hard quarters on shitty garbage, okay? They need a buy-in! Look at this platypus-looking motherfucker. Does his face say, You have to make your parents give you seventeen dollars to win me and save me from eternal prison in a dirty glass box?” 

Honestly it was pretty cute in Taako’s hands, whatever it was intended to be. But he was right about it and the rest of the prizes that had come out of that box, or maybe even the whole shipment. There wasn’t even anything good for the big prizes, and even Chuck-E-Cheese had impressive unwinnable prizes to entice kids and manipulate their parents. They couldn’t even stock a ten dollar lava lamp up there. He unlocked the coin collection and dumped the receptacle into the change bucket. Pretty light. Profit wasn’t going anywhere. That was probably the only machine he’d have to fill.

“I can put it back, if you think it’s so ugly.”

“What! No! It’s mine and I’m keeping it. I’ll pretend you won it for me, like a real man.”

“Like a real man!” Kravitz straightened up and looked Taako right in the eye. “I’m very good at claw machines, thank you very much.” 

“Um, prove it?” Taako held up the misfit toy and affected a soprano. “I’ll bet you can’t win shit, big guy! You’re all talk and no game!” 

“Fine!” Kravitz slammed the change on the counter and moved to the next machine. He was right; not a lot of them needed stocked, since they didn’t see enough business to have a lot of winners. It was still his job to check, though. “You pick a prize and I’ll get it for you. Any one.” 

“Hmmmmmmmm.” Taako tapped his chin and made a real show of picking, hitting the point once again as he clipped down the aisles that they really did need better prizes. Nothing here was terribly enticing, and that probably wasn’t helping the slack in business. Kravitz took the time to lock up, keep collecting, look anywhere but at Taako’s ass or his adorably dangerous smirk or his brilliant hair, star-spangled in the neon lights. “How about that one?” 

He of course had to pick the most difficult one possible. It was a knock-off alpaca, one of the last of the only good batch of prizes he’d seen come through. Kind of cute, with circus polka dots and fluffy fur, and kind of stupid looking like the rest of them, its face totally off-center and stuffed into an awkward position on the side of the machine. No handles sticking up, no tag to grab onto. Another toy flopped on top of it. Taako really was fucking with him. 

But Kravitz wasn’t lying about being competitive, and he definitely wanted to impress his date. 

“You’re on.”

It took more tries than he wanted to admit, which he conveniently didn’t have to think about since he had the change-taker open and could stick his quarters right back in. He had to maneuver the blue donut off of the top of it, which Taako eagerly added to his franken-plush, and as Kravitz actually started to get a hold on it, Taako pushed in under Kravitz’s armpit like an excited kid to see closer and wrapped an arm around his middle to steady himself, easier to reach than Kravitz’s shoulders, and okay, at that point, Kravitz was showing off a bit. When he finally got the damn alpaca into the chute, Taako screamed and hugged him tightly, sharing the celebration with him now. Kravitz couldn’t keep the dorky grin off his face and hugged Taako right back, which he’d been tempted but too nervous to do from the start. It was probably the first hug he’d accepted in a long time, and it felt...really, really good, actually. 

Taako looked up at him, clearly impressed even if he didn’t want to admit it, and Kravitz leaned a little closer, magnetized by the look in his eyes, and Taako grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him, hard. His prizes fell to the floor, but they didn’t care. Taako pushed him up against the claw machine and kissed him until he ran out of air, and when he finally pulled back, Kravitz could taste his lipgloss. The room spinned a little, and something electric passed between them before Taako let go of his rumpled jacket, patting it flatter as an afterthought. Kravitz wanted to cancel dinner and invite him home instead, but that was a little presumptuous for a first date, wasn’t it? 

“You, uh, done yet?” Taako’s voice was still a little husky as Kravitz peeled himself off of the machine and hunted for the heavy keyring in the dark camouflage of the carpet. 

“Um. Almost. We, yeah. Soon.” For some reason it was still hard to breathe. Kravitz felt a little dizzy, and he kind of liked it. 

“No one’s ever won anything for me before.”

Kravitz may as well have been walking on cloud nine when he got back to work. Maybe it hadn’t been much of an accomplishment, but as he finished up with the change and locked the cash register, he could definitely feel Taako’s admiring eyes on him. He wasn’t going to let go of that anytime soon, no sir. 

He’d pay for his wooing by not clocking the hour he’d spent fucking around with Taako there, which cleared his conscience at least a little bit. 

They left the mall too late to eat anywhere nice, but the Denny’s they ended up at allowed him to show off one more time on another ancient claw machine and earn a few more smooches. This one-trick-pony was at least going to get his money’s worth out of the trick, and the more he added to Taako’s budding collection, the more he could hope Taako would think about him when he wasn’t there. It was exhilarating, if he was honest with himself, and incredibly, incredibly nerdy. His cheap pancakes tasted all the better with Taako across from him, still wearing the huge hat, and flanked on both sides by wholesale stuffed animals.


	5. Kiss and Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fasten your seat belt. Please keep your hands, feet, and all other objects inside the ride. This is the longest chapter by far. They dance. They fuck. They cry. You cry. They get the Christmas they deserve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter of my pet project and I am harvesting an excellent crop of your emotions to get me through the winter. I love all of you and I love taakitz adventurezone

Even though it didn’t go exactly to plan, their first date burst open the floodgates for other meetings, each more friendly than the last.

It was hard to coordinate their schedules, since both of them were working maximum hours at their respective establishments, but they made do wherever and whenever possible. Kravitz braved the sensory overload of the Bath and Body Works for Taako. Taako spent his breaks in the arcade, feet dangling from his position on top of the prize counter. Both of them met after work to go out to eat, and they patronized every fast food establishment in the mall perimeter. They also took advantage of the emptiness of the strip, slipping into unoccupied stores and making out between the racks, or inside the pink and yellow quarter ride police car in front of the defunct Macy's, or the photo booth that hadn't had film in it since Taako had worked there. It was illicit and alluring and neither of them could get enough of the other. It was strange to leave every time wanting more, and not just in a physical way.

Taako liked coming to the arcade the most, though, if he admitted it. It was a nice break from the rush and crowds of crazed holiday gifters as Christmas quickly approached. 

“I’ve never really liked the holidays anyway, and hearing fucking ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ seventy million times a day just makes it worse!” When the place was mostly empty, it made a good place to rant to Kravitz, which he’d found surprisingly cathartic. His mysterious boss had come by only once, had smiled and hugged Taako and told him how happy she was that he was making her boy happy and to keep his ass off the glass counter on pain of death. 

He hadn’t really known what to make of that. It was easier to sit on Kravitz’s lap.

“Did a bunch of teenagers put twenty bucks in your jukebox and play ‘What’s New Pussycat’ a dozen times?” 

Taako laughed, sinking into Kravitz’s embrace like he belonged there and completely batting away the book he’d had some hope of finishing. This was better, anyway. He was more important.

“No, I guess that is worse.”

“I had to unplug it to reset it.” 

“Jesus.”

Taako closed his eyes, letting the sounds of the arcade wash over him. It didn’t stink in there anymore, after Krav had walked out of B&B with a few wallflowers and they’d improved the cleaning routine to cut back the stickiness and taken the extra step of ripping out the nasty carpet and bleaching the shit out of the old concrete underneath. It still needed some, the cool blacklight kind of carpet that looked like bus seats, but at least it was improving. It was weird, honestly. He didn’t give a fuck about the Smell Emporium staying in business aside from his paycheck. He had no company loyalty and the whole thing was fake anyway. The arcade, though, that was genuine, and weirdly enough, he was starting to get invested in its success. Maybe it was a poky little puppy thing, or because Krav worked there. The mall could live or die with everyone in it, for all Taako cared, but here he was, giving a shit about their fucking interior design. 

“You wanna look at the prize catalog?” It was cute how much more casual Krav got the longer they spent time together, some combination between not having to impress him as much and Taako’s cool casual persona rubbing off on him. Taako was contagious like that.

“Only if you don’t say numbers at me.” The arcade had invested in a few more ultra-prizes, some huge barbie playset and a sick ass nerf gun and, of course, a few ten dollar lava lamps. The lower prizes were still shit, though, and Taako recognized some of the same prizes they’d first stocked still in the claw machines a few weeks prior. 

“You need some fuckin sticky hands.” He threw one arm around Kravitz’s shoulders to steady himself and held his half of the magazine with his other hand. Krav took the other side and showed him a few he’d bookmarked, and the whole thing was so domestic it made him twitchy. 

“Jesus, the markup on these things is atrocious.”

“I thought you were allergic to numbers.”

“I’ll send you my hospital bills. You’ll be speaking to my lawyer.” 

“Can’t we settle it out of court?” He leaned in for a kiss and Taako allowed it, keeping up at least some of his bluff. 

“Maybe, but you’re on thin ice.”

“Duly noted.” Kravitz ran a hand through Taako’s hair just the way he liked in reparation, knocking askew the jingle bell antlers he’d been forced to wear for the big holiday, and Taako leaned even closer to get the most out of it. It was nice, like this, a certain kind of comfortable that he didn’t really recognize. He liked it, though, and that was what mattered.

“Sticky hands, and like. Some of these sick pinwheels. Tootsie rolls are good, but dude, you need more machines and stuff. The place is still way too empty.” 

“I’m not in charge of that part. I’m doing what I can from my end, alright?” 

“Just sayin’, pal.”

“What about fidget spinners?”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Kravitz tickled him and Taako squirmed and cackled, struggling to right himself on top of Kravitz. “I mean, yes, but noooo!”

“Yes or no, which one?” Taako got him right back, blowing a huge raspberry on his neck and making him wriggle in the chair. 

“Yes, they’ll go over great, but no, they suck.” 

“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.” He pulled Taako back into a comfortable position and chewed on something else to say. Taako wanted to pull his hands back around his waist, but there were people in the store, and that would have to wait.

“What, you have some kind of manifesto on fidget spinners I should know about?”

“What? No, I- Definitely not.” He chewed his lip instead, which Taako was satisfied to see covered in his glittery lip gloss. Plum, today, to match the tights he had on under his artfully ripped jeans. His manager had looked the other way. “I wanted to let you know, before you have to go-”

“Oh, kicking Taako out, huh?”

“Stop, just listen. Come back here after work, okay?” 

Taako poked at him, but he refused to let on more, and Taako’s break slipped away before he could talk more shit about buying a whole gross of plastic rainbow slinkies or argue that he ought to get the dragons and swords line for the gachapon machines because the shitty plastic gems and poop emojis they had now weren’t cutting it. Damn work interfering with his interoffice romance. It was hard to keep his focus on the job, even with the frenzied masses cleaning them out for last-minute gifts for people they didn’t know quite well enough and self-indulgences they could pass off as gratuitous. 

The chaos stressed him out, reminded him of all of the fake bullshit things he hated about the holiday season. He hated smiling at people and saying nice things at them and helping people that asked to see his manager and watching teens flirt in line right where he could see them. He especially hated having to take the most shifts over the last few days before Christmas because all of his coworkers knew he didn’t have a family and shoved the nastiest hours onto him so they could spend the day with their hideous spouses and offspring. At least he got holiday pay, and he had some serious plans of how to use it. His last paycheck might as well be direct deposited to the liquor store. The second his shift was over, he was out of there. Finally, finally off for the holiday. Except.

Except.

Someone was waiting for him. He actually had to backtrack after he found himself halfway back to his car, so caught up in putting his head down and powering through the horseshit that his own routine had snapped him up without thinking about it. It was stupid, embarrassing, and he’d almost convinced himself that it wasn’t worth pushing back the timeframe of going home and laying on the floor until he saw Kravitz standing there, hopeful and beautiful and thrilled to see him and so weirdly honest it gave Taako acid reflux. 

“I was starting to think you’d forgotten.”

“Ah, nah.” Taako waved off whatever useless excuse he might have come up with and looked around the arcade. It was clean and stocked and ready for them to take off, except the lights were all still on, and the jukebox, too. “So. What’s the big deal?”

“It’s nothing, really.” Kravitz rubbed his hands together, squirming under the scrutiny. Cute. “I just...” He rubbed the base of his neck, knocking hair astray from his high ponytail Taako was particularly proud of. “Here. I’ll show you.” He hit a button on a remote and offered his hand to Taako and fuck, why not, Taako took it. He was down for a surprise as long as neither of them ended up bleeding. Some restrictions apply. 

Kravitz led him to a relatively empty space where all of the lights seemed to converge, blue and purple and red and green and Kravitz’s face lit up like his tattoos and Taako couldn’t help reflecting that joy right back at him. He didn’t know what to make of it until Kravitz tightened the grip on his hand and put the other hand on his waist and the jukebox clicked and blasted out the first lines of this century’s greatest song, Carly Rae Jepsen’s I Really Like You and Taako laughed, long and hard, not the polite cute way he tried to reserve for his public but the real dorky donkey bray he couldn’t keep a lid on no matter how hard he tried. Kravitz started to laugh too, dropping the slow dance ruse at the chorus to lip-sync the greatest part right at Taako, and fuck him if it wasn’t cute as hell.

Taako pushed him.

“You ass! I thought you hated this kind of music!”

“You convinced me. I downloaded the whole album and each and every single one of the songs is stuck in my head and, shit, Taako,” he leaned back in close, even as he continued to bob with the melody, sucked into Taako’s personal space like he fucking belonged there or something, “They all make me think of you.”

“God! Spare a guy E-MO-TION, will you? I’ll faint right here.”

“I may or may not have made a whole playlist,” Kravitz admitted, sheepish and flushing under the lights and fuck, it was cute. The whole thing was, all of it, and Taako felt his own face heating up at the fact that Kravitz had rigged all of this so they could dance alone together in the empty mall and Taako pulled him back and kissed him, hard and fast and loose and sloppy perfect, the stress leaking out of him and puddling somewhere on the floor. 

“You dork! You total dork!”

“And this is the abridged version,” Kravitz mumbled, before being silenced by another kiss. 

“You’re killing me! How am I supposed to compete with this!”

“I don’t know, dance with me?”

“I don’t know if I can slow dance to ‘You’re Just My Type,’ Skeletor.”

“I guess that was poor planning on my part, huh...” Kravitz secured his arms around Taako’s waist anyway and grinned down at him with that awful, smitten look he always got and Taako’s heart swelled and slammed against his ribcage like it wanted to shove itself down Kravitz’s throat. 

“Jokes on you, cause I got sick moves regardless. Saint Motel can suck it.” But dancing was easy to forget in favor of kissing, electric with the privacy of the echoing building and the intimacy of the arcade. And fuck it, there was no point in pretense, Taako wrapped his legs around Kravitz and Kravitz lifted him, just held his ass up there like it was nothing to him, like he could do it all day, and Taako knew he was really done for. 

“Wait- hang on-” Kravitz was hoarse and his voice was deep and throaty and Taako barely stopped himself from tugging on Krav’s lip with his teeth again because he could just do that and no one could stop him. “I don’t- I want to-” 

“Fuck- your car?” He could feel Kravitz’s face flush as close as they were, and he pressed their foreheads together, because if they weren’t going to keep kissing, he at least wanted to keep that contact. All of this was his, and that shit ran through his veins like fresh magma. 

“No, I- Taako-” Kravitz sucked in a huge breath and okay maybe Taako was distracted by the excellent way his neck glimmered in the lights. “Come home with me?”

That caught him off guard, though for the life of him he didn’t know why. It was obvious, the natural progression if they were playing sitcom rules, although he was still feeling the parking lot as a valid option here, if the electricity between them had anything to say about the matter. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to expect more, but Kravitz kept surprising him in the strangest ways.

“For ‘coffee’?”

“For the night. Fuck, for- Do you have plans for the holidays?”

“Why, are you offering me some?”

“Taako.” His voice cracked, desperate, earnest, and he pressed against Taako again like somehow they could still be closer.

“Just vodka with the boys.”

“Come home with me.”

“Shit, you don’t have to ask me twice.”

It felt like an eternity, but they were out of there as soon as humanly possible. Locked and loaded, grabbed Taako’s shit from his car, hit the liquor store ‘cause he wasn’t giving that up for a little action. Made out some more at a stop light, like horny teenagers. Texted Merle and Magnus not to stay up for him. Every single thing that came between them and privacy made Taako want to scream, but Kravitz was so sweet and thorough and even offered to stop at the Walgreens for condoms before Taako could make it abundantly clear he had plenty in the one-night-stand kit he’d retrieved along with his wallet. No more stalling. 

And that was it. Kravitz could barely get the key in the door because he couldn’t keep his hands off of Taako, and Taako wasn’t letting him go anywhere. He didn’t even stop to take in the apartment and see if he had a huge Star Wars collection or seventy cats, and at the moment, he didn’t care if the guy had a live cow in there. Kravitz carried him to the bedroom, which Taako was absolutely going to take full advantage of from there on out (because: those arms--fuck!!!) and dropped him on his bed, where Taako had an excellent view of his boyfriend barely keeping himself together, hungry gaze and all. 

Taako only had to look at Kravitz to make him start stripping and he got a real sense that he could have asked the guy to do anything in that moment and it would be good as done. The power may or may not have instantly gone to his head and also his dick. He pulled his clothes off too, struggling with the tights and attempting to kick them off only for Kravitz to grab ahold of them and use them as an excuse to kiss all the way up Taako’s thighs as he tugged them down, down, down, and flung into the ether where they were immediately forgotten in place of much more important things. 

“You didn’t wear any underwear to work?” It felt like his increased heartrate was audible.

“Uh, I was wearing tights? That checks that box, my friend. And you should fuckin’ thank me, anyway, because we can jump right into this without doing any more talking please I swear to god.”

Kravitz had the distinct look of a guy who wanted to do more talking first, and Taako groaned internally. Or maybe externally, because he chewed his lip and pressed his cheek against Taako’s thigh like he was having some great moral dilemma.

“Are you alright with this?”

“Abso-fuckin-lutely, my dude, I am here with my dick out for a reason. Honest.”

“Right, I mean, I didn’t think- I just-”

“Yes, Krav, okay? I want to have sex with you. I want to have sex with you so bad. And I have for weeks and weeks now and I promise you any which way you want to do it I am down as long as we actually start doing it or I may actually spontaneously combust and die here. How about you?” As thickly as he laid into the sarcasm of the last line, it, for perhaps the first time, was actually a concern of Taako’s. With other guys it had been obvious, or at least had went on ahead and happened regardless, but something about this, as frustrating as it was to wait even longer, was sort of endearing, or...some kind of reassuring. Leave it to Kravitz to actually care about shit like that.

“Yeah, I. I really do, want to, I mean. Taako,” his voice was strangled again, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of him before they’d even started. “You’re beautiful.”

“You sap! You’re killing me!”

“I mean it, you’re gorgeous!”

“Appreciate me later!” For all his ardour, Kravitz had little in the way of direction or, honestly, leadership, and Taako grew tired of waiting and flipped them over where he could more easily be in charge. Experimenting could come later, after they had. “Wanna see something cool?”

Kravitz looked up at him, which Taako took as cue to get on with it, and he pulled out a condom from his emergency pack and ripped it open with his teeth. He actually felt Kravitz get harder under him, which made it even easier to roll on with a bit of a playful squeeze. 

“You- wow. Wow-”

“Yeah, I’m a pret-ty big deal.” Next came lube, and he wasn’t wasting any time, but he wasn’t fucking around, either. “You have two fingers to compliment me.” He glanced down. “Maybe three.”

Kravitz made a strange, weak sound in his throat that Taako happened to be particularly proud of, and then he immediately complied, which was even more interesting.

“You’re beautiful, Taako, you’re so- you amaze me every day, I’m serious, and I love seeing you come in, you brighten my day, and I’m so glad I met you-”

Taako flushed and moved enough to kiss Kravitz to shut him up, because that was more than he could necessarily handle all at once. He was already getting a headrush as is, and they had a ways to go. 

“You’re ridiculous-”

“I want to be. I like it.”

Leave it to Taako to date drama. He could barely look the guy in the face with that sappy smitten look there, or the cute way he angled to steal another kiss while Taako was distracted and letting out embarrassing noises, or the way his hands adoringly traced Taako’s freckles like they were leading him anywhere but a dead end. He was totally full of it. And contagious. It made his heart pound in a way he couldn’t just pass off as arousal.

“Lay back down.”

“One more,” Kravitz said, and kissed Taako again, and Taako kissed back and laughed and pushed him down, because he loved the hungry way Kravitz looked at him when he did that, and he arranged himself and looked down at Kravitz one more time, to soak it all in, that he’d finally made it here and Kravitz was even hotter than he’d ever imagined. His other tattoos were gorgeous and lovingly crafted, his skin definitely softer than it had been back when they’d first met, his hair perfect, his body, perfect, his dopey stupid grin, perfect, waiting for Taako like he was the best present he could have gotten and oh my god, Taako, get on with it. 

He sunk down with abandon and a bit of spite for himself for waiting so long and the electricity between them finally hit and started a fire that had been threatening them since the very first time they’d met eyes. He kept a firm hand on Kravitz, but Kravitz’s hands still worked around his waist like they lived there and steadied him, his firm grip hot for maybe the first time in recorded history and his heartbeat noticeable through his skin and Taako forgot about self consciousness and moaned as loud as he wanted to, because fuck the neighbors and fuck the holidays and fuck his boss and fuck his stupid reasons for waiting to talk to Kravitz because it was so, so, so worth it. 

Kravitz melted like putty underneath him, matching him in terms of low, lewd noises and passion and totally uncoordinated movement that worked, somehow, because precision didn’t matter when it was new and real and wonderful. He was in control, here, and he rode Kravitz exactly as he liked, and Kravitz looked up at him like he’d hung all the stars in the sky himself and it twisted him up inside and came out in a frenzied, desperate, beautiful mess and fuck, at this point it didn’t matter. He pulled Kravitz back up and kissed him senseless until both of them came and they rode the lightning bolt through the embrace, panting and cursing and holding each other like that was going to help, somehow, and Kravitz whispered his name and Taako held him even tighter, nails digging into the softness of his back and shuddering, struggling to catch his breath and struggling to care. It was fast. That didn’t matter. Time had stopped the second he had clocked out and he was spending his holiday right fucking here, finally, finally giving himself what he’d wanted for so long. 

“Fuck,” Kravitz whispered, half a laugh, and kissed Taako again. And again, and again. “Fuck, Taako.”

“Fuck Taako again in a few minutes.” He went boneless, letting Kravitz decide whether or not to hold him up because he couldn’t be assed to any longer, and Kravitz fell back and let gravity rearrange them. His idle hands kept coming back to Taako’s exposed skin, adoring how he was soft and pliant all over and Taako thanked himself for remembering to put lotion on that morning and for dating a guy enamoured with a little pudge.

“I wasn’t exactly planning to host-”

“Stop. Thinking.” Taako rolled back on top of him and laid there because he could and the power of it thrilled him. “Lay here.”

“I can do that. Yeah. Okay.” He tied and tossed the condom, wiping his hands sheepishly on his sheets, and pulled Taako close again. And closer. Taako’s limbs grew heavy and he closed his eyes, sighing and letting his lungs finally catch up to him. Kravitz’s hand worked into his hair, and the rhythmic way he played with it relaxed him even further. He’d let anyone play with his hair if he trusted them, it was one of his greatest weaknesses, and Kravitz’s fascination with it really spoke to their chemistry and Taako’s luck. He could lay like that forever.

“Talk. About whatever.”

“You want me to?” Something about the little circles his thumb made felt so, so right, and Taako sighed, all the air re-escaping him like a hot air balloon.

“Yeah. Your college band. Your ass. Whatever.”

“Um. You asked me about my tattoos, a while back?”

“Sure.” He imagined melting into Kravitz and living there. No rent. Just comfortable eternity. 

“I’m fascinated by death, I guess.”

“Morbid. Go on.”

Kravitz laughed

“I don’t want to ruin the mood.”

“You brought it up. Pfft. Well, if you do, we’ll just fuck again to clear the air.” Taako shifted again to get comfortable against Kravitz and see him at least a little, but the warmth of the moment still clung to his eyelids.

“If you insist, I guess. I almost died in high school. Car crash. Um. It did take my mother.”

“Jesus, dude.” 

“Yeah.”

“Wait, I thought your boss was your mom.”

Kravitz shook his head a little, and Taako felt shitty for bringing the whole thing up. They should have just fallen asleep on each other and let the moment be.

“She and her wife took me in. She’s amazing, I owe her a lot. My dad hadn’t been in the picture much to start with, and that was the end of that. She was a friend of my mom’s. And it was funny- Well, not funny, I guess, but… My mom had been sick for a while before that, and we had all been waiting for it to happen, you know, but-” He let out a short, awkward laugh. “Definitely not like that.”

“Jesus, dude,” Taako repeated, taking his hand because it was the only useful thing he could think of. Kravitz looked at like it had just magically appeared there, but he took it and gave it an appreciative squeeze. “Some pillow talk.”

“She didn’t want a funeral, or anything. She said they were depressing. So I took the life insurance money left over after I had her cremated and got the tattoo. The raven one. I didn’t have enough to do the whole thing, though, and I can’t really bring myself to get it completed.”

“Damn.” 

Kravitz nodded and drew his hand back to Taako’s hair, relaxing a little. Taako used the freedom to trace his fingers over the tattoos he could reach, each little detail as perfect and organic as it could have possibly been. They truly were works of art. Perfect little sketched ribs, down to the cute little (fig. 1) like his body was an anatomy book, but one someone had pressed flowers in. Brilliant lilies, carefully done in whites and pinks and blues to stand out against his skin.

“I got the flower one when I graduated, because I was growing beyond all that, you know, even though it had been an important part of me, which is why, you know, the ribs. And then the UV sleeves.”

“Why those?”

Kravitz laughed.

“Because they look cool as hell.”

“Hell yeah they do.” They laid there for a while like that, the quiet washing over them. It had seemed awkward at first, but it was sort of cleansing. Really exposing themselves to each other and all that shit. 

“I think it’s snowing,” Kravitz mumbled, breaking the silence finally, and Taako sighed. His car was going to be a mess when he got back to it. He hated driving anyway, had barely gotten his licence, but the winter really fucked things up. 

“You said you wanted more?” He wanted to fill the air, now, forget about the outside and the weird feeling in his chest now and how maybe he was starting to wish he wasn’t naked. 

“Yeah.” Kravitz took Taako’s hand and traced a spot opposite the lilies, on his rib cage and all the way down. “I want to get pink tourmaline there, these huge sharp crystals. I’m waiting to have serious cash for it, because I really want the color to look right on my skin.”

“Sick.”

Kravitz smiled. 

“That’s what I’ve actually got planned. I’ve got dozens of others I think would be cool, but all of my money is going in a jar for that tattoo in particular.”

“And then you’re getting ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’ on your ass, right?”

“Yes, all of the lyrics. I think if I have it done in size 18 font, I won’t waste any of my limited real estate. It’ll be hard to go to the bathroom for a while, but it’ll be worth it.”

Taako laughed and moved, laying his head on Kravitz’s stomach so he wouldn’t have to look at him after that. The seriousness with which he could goof on shit like that was a little alarming sometimes, and Taako bit back a comment on Kenny Chesney before he walked straight into trouble. It was starting to feel more comfortable, though, like the boundaries between them and around them were really taking shape, and it looked promising. Usually the walls that went up around Taako only had himself inside. 

“What about you?” Kravitz finally turned the force back on Taako when he’d finished laughing at his own hilarious joke and collected his shit. 

“I mean, just the one.” He was suddenly relieved Kravitz couldn’t properly see his face. It would be easy to dodge again, but the whole truth Krav had told about his weighed on him and made him squirm. He probably owed it to the guy, if they were at the bearing guts part of the whole thing already. “I kind of told you about it already,” Taako wagered to start, wondering how much Kravitz had picked up back then. 

“For your sister. Lup, you said. Am I saying that right?” He traced his fingers over the phoenix and the three fiery letters beneath it. It was beautiful, but parts of it had scarred, the tattoo artist inexperienced, and that somehow seemed apt. 

“Mmyeah.”

“And you told me she’s your twin, when we were playing twenty questions.” 

“Oh shit, did I?”

“What happened, Taako?” His tone was curious, but not cruel, and his arm supported Taako like he knew it was probably difficult and Taako hated him for being so understanding. And comfortable. 

“...You, uh, you trying to unlock my fuckin’ sad backstory?” 

“Only if you want to tell it.”

Taako huffed. And sighed, and considered blowing the whole thing over but couldn’t and didn’t and he started talking, knowing even as he did that he was going to regret it.

“So...Fuck, um. I never really wanted to go to the state college. College at all, honestly. I followed her here, it was all her idea. And I’m still stuck in this town because of it.” And with the plug pulled, the whole torrent of old feelings poured out and he couldn’t stop them. “We’re the only family we have. It was just me and her, just the two of us, the whole time we were growing up. We were always together, and she was so good at what she did, and she was so into the arts program and research shit they had there, and I couldn’t pull her away from that, and I couldn’t leave her either, because I was a coward, and I still am.”

Kravitz’s grip tightened, probably in disagreement, but he let Taako go on. 

“She met a guy, and they were so in love, and god, I just wanted her to be happy. It was so good to see her happy, okay, and when she had the opportunity to study abroad in her program, I wanted to tell her to stay here, but I couldn’t because it would have been so good for her, so I didn’t, and she went, and it went- bad-”

Taako swallowed.

“There was some political shit going on then, and shit went bad, and power was off and the internet was bad, and we didn’t hear from her, and we didn’t hear from her, and the police were fuckin’ useless, like oh, this just happens sometimes, and everyone was so sure she was just fucking gone and everyone forgot like it was just over and I couldn’t handle it. I had no idea what to do without her. She’s the better of both of us, she always has been. She’s most of my impulse control and all of my support system. Look, I, I was a fuckin’ wreck.” That was enough faking. He rolled into Kravitz’s arms and squished his face into the embrace and went through the abridged version, muffled.

“I fucked up and blew it, and I dropped out. But Barry-- her man, he’s a real...he’s really something. He wouldn’t buy it. He went after her, spent all his savings on it, searched for months, and fuck, I thought I’d lost him too. Full, fucking. Rock bottom, man. I had the guys, but. No one else would have me.”

Kravitz rubbed his back, and Taako was amazed to find himself bawling like a fucking baby, like it was all happening again, and fuck, maybe he’d never really talked it out since it had happened, because it was all so raw and shitty and the reality sunk in of how alone he’d been since then, even given Merle and Magnus, who were good, but they weren’t that kind of good. 

“He found her?” Leave it to Kravitz to get him going again. He was starting to get the feeling that there was no way this was going to be a cute little disposable fling. Maybe it was what he needed.

“Yeah.” Taako wiped his snot on Kravitz’s sheets, cause fuck, he had to wash them now anyway. “He found her. She’s okay. She’s alive and she’s okay. But they can’t come back right now, they can’t leave the country and they can’t get back in, cause of the whole bullshit, fuckin, politics, and god fucking knows how long they’ll be there with the way shit is right now, and nobody cares cause everything else is so fucked up and people don’t think about visas and travel bans and shit unless it happens to them, and Jesus this is so embarrassing, but I miss her so fucking much. She’s my heart, Krav, and I have to go on living like my heart isn’t missing from my fucking chest.” 

Kravitz just hugged him. And sniffled, like maybe he was crying too, even if it wasn’t his business and wasn’t his pain. 

“So. I’m just, trying to survive alone with everything I fucked up. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have a family, and when we’re done here, I’m gonna go home and get drunk again and spend the holiday the same way I spent it last year.” He tried to swallow it all back up, but Pandora’s box was opened and Kravitz was still holding the box cutter. “There. That’s my tattoo story.”

“Taako, I’m- I really do feel for you. That’s an awful position to be in, and I understand if you want some time to yourself, but. When I invited you to spend the holiday here, I meant the whole thing. I want to spend it with you.”

Taako just looked at him, unable to put any words together properly.

“I mean it. We can have dinner and we can do something big, or we could order take out and make love a few more times, which, I honestly wouldn’t say no to either-”

“You sound like an old man,” Taako said, amused despite himself. “Make love. Jesus.”

“My point is, I want to spend it with you. Because I like you. I like spending time with you. And I know that emptiness and I know the pain and I want you to have someone to tell you, you aren’t a failure and you aren’t alone and you aren’t,” He looked Taako right in the eye. “A coward. You’re remarkably strong for going through all that alone. But you didn’t deserve to, and you don’t have to.”

“Fuck,” Taako muttered, swallowing thickly around something the size of a small boulder. “Sweet talker.”

“But you can say no. You don’t have to. I can drive you back-”

“Oh, shut up!” He wiped his face and kissed Kravitz, knowing full well he’d get snot on him anyway, and Kravitz smiled up at him like he’d won the goddamn lottery. He had no idea that Taako was the lucky one here. “Order us some fucking dinner. I’m taking a shower.”

“Yeah, alright.” Kravitz sat up and kissed Taako on the cheek, a sweet thing that didn’t really match any of their mixed up too-heavy emotions. The holidays really bring out the worst in people, but sometimes the best came with it. It all tangled up funny in his chest, the desire to curl up and die somewhere in private mingling with the ridiculously domestic need to sit in Kravitz’s lap and watch cheesy movies with him and eat take out in pajamas and fuzzy socks. That, and he planned to use up the rest of the handful of condoms in his bag. He figured they could work something out. He could take a break to collect himself, and all bets were off from there. He’d earned this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you  
> you can find the playlist here: https://goo.gl/XKiyzA  
> also in taako's emergency one night stand kit: hairbrush, toothbrush, change of clothes, good smelling moisturizing body wash in case his date, like kravitz, uses suave 3 in 1 bodywash like a fucking animal, Additional Supplies


	6. Don't Survive--Thrive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of an epilogue--a way to move forward. Real life doesn't usually sort itself into cute endings. Their story isn't over, but they have a great start, and so do we. Here's to 2018! We're going to own it if we have to break it apart with our bare hands!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait to publish but I had a shitty day and I wanted the relief and delight of finishing this and seeing your thoughts on the completed project! I may have to write a real epilogue since you guys love Lup so much, but this is the whole beast! *chef kiss* my first actual completed chapter fic

“Taako, how did we end up here?”

Kravitz’s fingers walked a imaginary cartographer’s path along Taako’s chest and side and beautiful stomach, unable to keep from exploring even after they’d caught their breath. The wide, wonderful expanse of his skin was irresistible, and finally being able to truly get his hands on it without concern for timed breaks or Burlington Coat Factory security cameras was almost more than he could handle. Having him all to himself all of last night and most of the day so far was a dream come true.

“In the bedroom, bearcat? Cause I thought that was pretty clear. You did this,” he slid his hand between Kravitz’s thighs, eliciting a groan even though they’d already played the first and second round of this game already that morning, “And I did this…” He kissed Kravitz, nearly knocking the introspective bullshit completely out of his mind, but as Kravitz pulled him back into a snuggle, it didn’t want to leave him, even with the sight of Taako in one of his band shirts and lacy underwear right there in front of him.

“No, I mean...how did we end up in this place in life? I- stop rolling your eyes at me- It’s so fucking...sad, Taako. Like, we trained for so long to be something and somebody and we’re working at that mall. And- Look, I’m not trying to say they’re bad jobs, or shit on the people that work there, but...Fuck, I thought I’d be so much more.” He stared up at the ceiling and felt, rather than saw, Taako curling into his side like he belonged there. At least they had each other, but in a day and a half he’d be back at the same counter doing the same shit for just enough money to stay alive, and it just exhausted him emotionally. This couldn’t be it, could it?

“I wanted to be a chef.” Taako’s voice was soft and slow and strangely genuine, the kind of delicate that Kravitz imagined holding in his hands and watching it slip through his fingers like sand. “I loved cooking. I- I wanted to be one of those assholes on Food Network, you know, cooking for a huge audience and, you know, make my own frying pan line and shit.”

“What stopped you?” Kravitz couldn’t resist asking, even though he figured he knew the answer. 

“Money. Stupidity. Fear. I didn’t want to go to school for it, cause I didn’t want to follow their way of doing shit, like Cordon Bleu or whatever, and it wasn’t right, and then… I mean, I told you, about Lup, and… that other shit happened, and I just lost it, man, it was over. I just had to get out.”

Kravitz’s itchy fingers found their way back to Taako’s hair, smoothing out the tangled mess of curls and soaking in the warmth of his nervous scalp. There was no easy thing to say to him, because that would be wrong. He didn’t want to make out like last night’s confession was nothing. It wasn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be, and it would be cruel of him to pull an answer out of his ass like Taako could have solved his problems if he’d just. “Just”. That really pissed him off. He rolled something else around instead, trying to let that speak for itself.

“Lot of people told me how I could have done well if I’d picked another major, you know? Like, every time I’d tell someone I was in music, they’d be like, oh, are you going to teach?”

Taako snorted, but it lacked some of his usual energy. In the dark of the bedroom and the silence of the snow falling just outside the window, the emptiness threatened to swallow them up if they didn’t stick together. Taako shivered and Kravitz pulled the blanket back up where it had been before he’d gotten handsy again.

“But- But that’s not what I wanted to do. It- well, now, it’d be better than nothing, okay, but I wanted to actually conduct something big and meaningful, you know, like a movie score, or a video game soundtrack, and settling for accounting or something because I did okay on the math portion of the SAT seemed like selling out.”

“That’d be tight. You know what? I think you’d be good at that, Krav. The music thing, I mean. And you’d look dope in a tux.”

“Thanks.” It seemed sort of sarcastic coming out of his mouth, but he really meant it, and he felt the need to modify it and make it clear he actually felt it with a raw kind of resonance he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He was also really, really starting to like the sprinkling of his name into Taako’s smooth cadence, like he’d leveled up in their closeness somehow. Taako didn’t use anyone’s name. “I’ll bet you’re a really good cook.” 

“Natch! I’m a fucking amazing chef. I’ll make you breakfast or something, you’ll see. Just cause I’m not fuckin’ Bleu-certified doesn’t mean I don’t got the skills, alright?” 

His familiar confidence was comforting, and Kravitz couldn’t help but smile. 

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

They laid like that for a while longer, body and soul naked to one another and content to soak it in for the moment. It felt like it had been an eternity since Kravitz had bared himself to another person and not regretted it. He wanted to preserve it somehow, even as the bittersweetness of it washed over him. It was shitty. It just was, and it wasn’t like he could come up with a miracle solution. Recognizing that honestly and being able to share the frustration with another person was an entirely different beast, and he wanted to collar it and hold onto it as long as possible. 

“Taako?”

“Yeah babe?”

“What about Youtube?”

Taako actually rolled over to look at him, his long hair getting stuck under Krav’s arm and giving him a weirdly surprised look as it tugged on him. 

“Um, what the fuck about Youtube?”

“Stick with me, okay?” He raised his arm to free Taako and Taako took advantage of it to rest his head on Kravitz’s chest, the pure warmth of him heating Kravitz even after the exercise they’d shared. “You could make your own cooking channel. People would adore you, Taako, I mean it. It wouldn’t cost much to get off the ground, and once you got it going, the ad money would pay for better equipment.”

“Sure, with all the other assholes who think they’re celebrities.” 

“I’m serious, Taako. People will love you. I know I do.”

It’s not exactly the way he wanted it to come out, but the moment it slipped and touched the air, Kravitz knew it was true and a weird feeling shivered through him with the realization of it. He loved Taako. It was the honest truth, like the fact that Taako smelled good, or that they both had to go back to work soon and their break could never be long enough to hold everything he wanted. He expected Taako to deflect, to push him away, to get up and go home, but he laid there and pressed his face into Kravitz’s chest and sighed a strange shaky sigh Kravitz didn’t have any idea how to interpret. 

“Yeah?” They could both pretend it was further reassurance that his internet celebrity would be a non-issue, but it wasn’t about that, and they knew it. That didn’t bother Kravitz.

“Yeah. I mean it.”

“Shit. Fuck. Okay. I mean-” He laughed, a weird, giddy, awkward, perfect laugh, and Kravitz wanted to wrap his arms around him and keep him there forever. “Why not? It couldn’t hurt, could it?” 

“I’m not saying you’ll be a superstar overnight, but Jesus, Taako, just because we have to work to survive doesn’t mean we have to give up everything we ever cared about, right? We’re allowed to keep some part of our humanity. We have to work to live, but there’s no point if we’re not actually living! Even if you don’t get a million fans, shit, it’s an excuse to do something you love. It’s no ticket to the stars, but that’s all I’ve got.” He chewed his lip and let his hands fall, spent and tired of everything the world had sucked out of them. If they could only fight back a little, he wanted to do it.

“Guess I’ll have to accept it, then,” Taako said, with a goofy grin he couldn’t hold back and even if he didn’t articulate it, Kravitz saw his confession reflected right back at him out of those honeyed eyes and nothing he’d tasted had ever been sweeter. “If you’ll do the music.”

“I didn’t say I was a composer, Taako.”

“Don’t bullshit me, I’ve seen your computer. And I’m not doing that shit without you. Taako doesn’t do gruntwork. You’re holding the camera and shit too, got it, mister?” 

There was no way Kravitz could resist him. And he didn’t particularly want to, either.

“I’m all yours. We’ll start the New Year by taking back what’s ours, a little at a time. For the sake of the thing.”

“Say you’re mine again.”

A weight was lifted from Kravitz’s shoulders, one he hadn’t realized he was carrying. He’d probably pick it up again, maybe add more on, but now he had someone to share it with. Someone who happened to be a fantastic kisser and smell purely divine and, okay, just a little bit like vanilla. Now that was worth celebrating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, it's over? Fuck! Find me on twitter and force me to keep writing bc i'm terrible about it and i do it for the applause, applause....
> 
> Taako's cooking channel is probably somewhere between Binging With Babish and Jun's Kitchen. Go ahead and ask me shit, my brain is filled with this garbage. Merle works at the kind of shop that sells incense and dragon statues in the grossest part of the mall.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment (even just "wow" or copy and paste your favorite line honestly) if you enjoyed it! 
> 
> Find me on twitter @ceilingfan_5 and talk to me about taz! I'll also give out my discord id! If you haven't already, check out the epilogue by ViolentSarcasm!!! It's so good and I love them so much

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Nothing in this World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402029) by [ViolentSarcasm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentSarcasm/pseuds/ViolentSarcasm)




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